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Abstract

A comparison of Neruda's Ode to a travelling Albatross ("Oda a un albatros viajero" in his Tercer Libro de las Odas) with Baudelaire's poem, "The Albatross", shows the essential difference between there two poets. Neruda was well acquainted with Baudelaire and there is no doubt he admired the French poet, but when in 1956 he wrote his poem on the albatross, his idea was not to use the bird as a symbol for the poet, but to describe its marvellous flight as it really is. For this reason, Neruda can be considered as "a realist poet", despite the restrictions he himself made to the concept on different occasions. Neruda's poetical development did not, en fact culminate only in a political commitment, but was oriented to what in strict justice can be called poetic realism (or naturalism) the main characteristic of his "Elementary Odes".